Flipkart records highest-ever single day sale, grosses $200mn

Flipkart records highest-ever single day sale, grosses $200mn

E-commerce firm Flipkart recorded sales worth around USD 200 million on Monday, its highest-ever single-day sale in the company’s history, a spokesperson for the company has told moneycontrol.com.

The sales are likely the results of a massive advertising campaign run by the company ahead of the upcoming festive season in India.

As per market estimates, e-tailers such as Flipkart are expected to spend around Rs 400-Rs 500 crore in advertising during October, more than three times the usual money spent in steady state, according to research and advisory firm RedSeer Consulting.

This is the third Big Billion Days sale being run by Flipkart.

Analysts say e-commerce sales this season may be a make-or-break for many Indian online retail firms, especially Flipkart, which competes with US giant Amazon.

In June, Amazon, Inc announced an additional investment of USD 3 billion into its Indian unit. This comes after it exhausted its investment of USD 2 billion announced in July 2014.

This fresh infusion of funds comes at a time when homegrown e-commerce firms are struggling to raise money.

So far, Flipkart seems to have trumped peers, at least when it comes to pricing strategy for mobile phones.

According to a report by Bangalore-based research firm RedSeer, Flipkart reported lowest median prices across popular non-exclusive mobile stock keeping units listed on its platform compared to Amazon and Snapdeal on Monday.

The median price for non-exclusive mobile phone stood at Rs 7,500 on Flipkart compared to Rs 7,900 and Rs 7,800 on Amazon and Snapdeal, respectively.

Amazon, however, led the race when it came to consumer, electronics and large appliances segment. The same was reported to be Rs 4,050 for Amazon Rs 4,200 for Flipkart and Rs 4,300 for Snapdeal, RedSeer said.

According to RedSeer, television continued to be the primary source that has created awareness about the festive sales to people.

Nearly 68 percent of the total people surveyed said they were aware of the ongoing festive sales of at least one of the e-commerce firms.

Of it, 64 percent said they got to know about the sales through television ads. Social media followed by making 49 percent people aware of the same, as per the RedSeer survey.

Snapdeal and Amazon did not immediately respond to a query by moneycontrol.com.